Revenge and getting even, there is an awful lot of this in this world. A famous tv show made the ancient saying that revenge is a dish best served cold, famous. They attributed it to an alien race when it really came from an ancient Earth culture. Why is this world obsessed with getting even? This might be one of the hardest questions to answer that there is. There was actually a business on the internet, at one time, that advertised that they would get even with people for you, for a price. I don't know if they are still around, but I remember reading a story about them, at the time. You could hire them to do things like throw a pie in the face of someone or have them give prank calls and the like. I don't know what it cost, but apparently a lot of people were taking advantage of the service. If they are not around today I guess it is because their legal bills got too high.

There are individuals and entire races of people who are consumed with getting even, but what are they getting even for? It seems that they are getting even for everything from a perceived slight to a historical event that occurred thousands of years ago. To some people revenge is the most important thing in their lives. In the old days, in Japan, if a Lord walked by and a peasant didn't bow low enough it was an insult and the lord would have the peasant's head cut off in revenge for not groveling sufficiently. Face was very important. Face was the act of preserving one's dignity and prestige. Many things affected one's face and often death was required to restore it. Face is still an important factor in oriental countries, but certainly not as important as it was in feudal times.

Tito
Photo Source: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
This photo is subject to the British Crown Copyright

Is revenge an emotion? No revenge isn't, but hate is and revenge and hate travel hand in hand. When animals hate each other, it is usually because it is either inborn in them, or they may face competition from certain members of their own group and have to drive them off. Another reason that animals might fight is over food, but when the fight is over so is the emotion. Humans are different, some will retain a grudge for a lifetime. One has only to look at the former Yugoslavia to see what I am talking about. When war broke out in that region, after the death of Tito, all the old religious hates came to the surface and people began to murder other people that had formerly been their neighbors and friends. Why did they do this? They did it because hundreds and even thousands of years ago these groups had been killing each other and now they were free to get revenge. When Tito was alive, you would have been punished severely for such an act. It is bad enough for people to kill each other over religion when they are of different religions, but it is even stranger when they are of different sects of the same religion. You would think that that religious people would realize that killing is wrong, but there is nothing worse than a blood thirsty religious person bent on revenge.

OK, why are humans like this? If you look at a situation where a race of people hate another race for religious reasons, or even ethnic reasons, there is usually poverty involved. I am not a psychiatrist, but I can't help but think that this is a diversion for them and takes their mind off their problems or at the least, provides a scapegoat. The people that are the instigators of this, don't even realize why they are doing this. They convince themselves that it is for justifiable reasons, but it actually isn't. How can one justify getting even for something that happened thousands of years ago? It is a lucky thing for us that most countries don't feel the same way. If most of them did, the entire world would be fighting with their territorial neighbors. Mexico would be at war with the U.S. as would Canada for past injustices. Britain and France would be at each other's throats as would China and Japan, just to mention a few countries. Even though countries do go to war from time to time, it is not as bad as the religious zealots who are constantly attacking each other.

When I was a kid, I was taught that I should love my neighbor and that peace was blessed. Some people are taught that if you kill you neighbor you will go to heaven and they believe it. I can't help but wonder about the correlation that they have created between murder and God. It is the oxymoron of religion.

Indira Ghandi
Photo Source: Public Domain, Nixon Library

Assassination is usually an act of revenge. When Lincoln was assassinated it was revenge for the Civil War. If an assassination isn't for revenge than it off times stirs revenge. Examine the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi. She was shot by two of her security guards. After the assassination Hindus took revenge on Sikhs. Over 1,000 people died and the army had to quell the violence. When Caesar was assassinated it had been approved of by Cicero, a famous Roman orator. In revenge, Mark Anthony killed Cicero and his tongue was cut out by Anthony's wife. Twenty Roman emperors were assassinated. The word assassin comes from the word hashishim or taker of hashish. It comes from a story about an old man who ruled a fortress who would get volunteers to kill people. The volunteers were given a wine drugged with hashish. Marco Polo told of this story.

If it were not for revenge, the world would be a much better place. I suspect that the peoples of the Earth would all be much better off. There would have been much less fighting which would have led to more prosperity for everyone.